Chapter Six
The wizarding world was abuzz, Gringotts Bank has recently been broken into and the once impenetrable defenses are now under heavy scrutiny. Penny having read the coverage in the Daily Prophet is more than aware that the target was the philosopher's stone which had been removed by Hagrid before the start of term. Like most things however, interest rises and falls and the majority of the students were all gossiping about Harry Potter becoming Gryffindores seeker on the Quiditch team. Staying in the periphery of the main characters, Penny stayed up to date so that she was aware of the potential happenings. Soon a great event occurred during Halloween at Hogwarts. The Great Hall was decorated with over a thousand live bats. The bats flew together in groups that made them appear to be huge black clouds that swooped between the candles that float high above. Some of the Ravenclaw's mentioned a Gryffindore girl who was crying in the bathroom. Penny raised an intrigued eye brow at this bit of information. Since she has been here she finds it amusing just how much the comings and goings of the main characters are discussed within the other characters. Sometimes Penny had the very possible thought that the periphery and side characters lives revolved around the main characters. While she was lost in those thoughts however she was brought back to attention by a piece of parchment folded up like a small bird flying towards her. She opened the parchment to see in scribbled writing "I KNOW YOUR SECRET!" Before she could put much thought into this however her wand began warning her as usual when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the dungeon. His turban askew which Penny thought to be funny as with just a slight nudge with a spell from her wand she could reveal Voldemort to the masses. She started thinking of whether this could hold any major changes to the story but chose not to. She was worried that if she changed things too much her hard work would be made pointless and result in her death in ways she couldn't comprehend at this moment. All the student's attention with the exception were on the desperately panting and out of breath Professor Quirrell. He slumped against Dumbledore's table and gasped "Troll- in the dungeon thought you ought to know". He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut feigning that he had lost consciousness. There was an uproar within the students who became panicked. That was simply halted with a wave of Dumbledore wand that set off many purple firecrackers. "Prefects, lead your houses back to your dormitories immediately!" Dumbledore roared. "Okay follow me everyone, first years don't get separated" said Penelope Clearwater.
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They walk together in a well-ordered manner through the west side of Hogwarts, up the spiral staircase and finally reach the Ravenclaw dormitory. Even though it is an emergency the enchanted door knocker still asks them a riddle. "What has a head and a tail but no body?" Without even a seconds thought, several Ravenclaw's say in unison "a coin". The doors swing open and the students make their way in. There are several first years who seem particularly nervous about the goings on tonight at Hogwarts. Their fears are quickly placated by their elder classmates. Penny seemingly not all that bothered heads towards the chaise lounge that has quickly become her preferred spot. Since she has read and memorized all of the books she owns, she has moved onto the Ravenclaw book collection on the common room book cases. There are some obscure titles that wouldn't interest the majority of students. Penny is currently reading about the creation of magical artifacts. She intends to create her own series of enchanted objects and is deeply immersed in the lore of said objects. Once all the other Ravenclaw's have gone to bed Penny begins her first test. She removes several objects from her bag. She has slowly collected them over several months. First is a small brown, bag made of cloth, It is the standard bag used to carry ones books and equipment between lessons. Next is a small red crystal That she got from potions class, She answered a question Snape thought would be unanswerable to a student. He was so confident that it couldn't be answered he even offered a rare material from his personal stock of supplies. She finely crushes the crystal and mixes it with ink within a pestle and mortar. She then begins to inscribe the cloth bag, with the ink and Crystal mixture a series of complex patterns at specific angles. The angles are worked out using advance Arithmancy, which despite being one of her least favourite subjects its required learning by anyone who wishes to create a powerful object due to learning the magical properties of numbers. Next she uses her wand which begins glowing and releases a non-corporeal Patronus charm. The silver light of the Patronus charm is absorbed by the ink which begins to change colour to match the Patronus. The reason this is done is because everyone's Patronus is different. Even if none corporeal it acts as a security measure, making it so that only Penny can use the magic object she is creating. This requires highly advanced magical knowledge that the majority of people are unable to comprehend. Finally when the cloth bag begins to absorb the inscribed pattern turning the whole material a wonderful silver colour. Finally she uses the most advanced enchantment she knows which imparts some of her knowledge and personality into the desired object. This is her own recreation of lost magic that was used by the founders of Hogwarts when they created the sorting hat. The opening of the now brilliant silver bag begins to move, "Hello master, what can I do for you this evening" It speaks in a strict almost butler like manner. What Penny has essentially created is a miniature version of the sorting hat. She has had to combine several obscure magics, along with creating some original types of magic to compensate for the magics that were lost in the stream of time. "Hello there" Penny spoke back to the cloth bag. "I would like for you to carry some objects for me if you wouldn't mind" The cloth bag seemed to nod in agreement. Penny quickly handed over most of her belongings to the bag. She asked it to take special car of the rainbow coloured egg she received from Hagrid that she was currently incubating. The bag Penny made is a magical bag that can carry objects within itself. She used advanced Arithmancy and advance Transfiguration and Charms to create a space within the bag that is far larger inside than the outside. This is not without precedent in the magical world just imagine Mad Eye Moody's trunk. The charm that increases the capacity of an objects internal dimensions without effecting its external dimensions is known as the Undetectable Extension Charm. This was for the most part pretty simple, the really hard part was giving it a will of its own. Penny began placing the majority of her belongings within the bag that disappeared within the gaping mouth of the bag. To retrieve them was simple she simply asked the bag for what she required, it gladly gave said item back appearing in her hands as requested. What she found quite strange however is that while giving the bag some of her personality and memories it seemed to be far different from she herself. It's butler like mannerisms seemingly coming from nowhere. Penny spends the rest of the night talking and getting to know the bag. She decides to name it Sebastian, thinking it is a rather butler sounding name. The bag was adamant it didn't require a name but Penny wouldn't have that. Penny and Sebastian watched on her map as the Indication of everyone within the castle were going about their business post troll attack. Seemingly having some memories of her previous life Sebastian found it pretty funny that Dumbledore really does just pace around his office.
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The next morning Penny disguised her bag to make it appear to be just your average kind of bag proceeded to the Great Hall for breakfast. Yesterdays troll issues were quickly dealt with, the rumour mill was running rampant saying that it was defeated by three first year Gryffindore students. Penny quietly ate breakfast and read the Daily Prophet. Once again a little origami bird cam flying over. Penny sighed with frustration before opening it to read "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE HIDING!" Agnes noticing the small piece of parchment and Penny's changing expression asked "What's wrong Penny?" the concern she showed for her friend truly meant a lot to Penny. Penny deciding not to hide the harassment showed her the note written on the piece of parchment. "What your'e hiding, what a load of codswallop" Agnes said with a sense of indignation. Drew joined in "Everyone knows your'e one of the smartest in our year. What could they think you're hiding?" The note was passed along the Ravenclaw's who all seemed to find it just as annoying as Penny. Penny's annoyance however was quickly replaced by another feeling, She felt like she belonged within this group of people who all seemed to support her. An over whelming sense of happiness lit a fire within her chest. The warm feeling was something Penny desperately wanted to protect. Penny was finally given the note back and decided to try a smell she had leaned recently. It is a derivative of a protection charm that returns a casters spell back towards them. She placed the spell on the parchment, which slowly folded itself back into a bird and flew away. Penny and the other Ravenclaws watched as it flew towards the Slyverin table. A sense of annoyance sprung up as they saw where the small origami bird returned to. It landed in the center of Draco Malfoy, and his minions Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy looked at the returned parchment with a look of annoyance. He opened it up and his words had been replaced with "ARE YOU STUPID?" his face flushed with rage as the Ravenclaw table erupted in laughter. Penny wasn't sure if provoking Malfoy was the correct move but as he has the mentality of a child and the temper to match she figured she could out think and out maneuver his machinations any day of the week.
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Time continued on relatively peacefully in Hogwarts and it was now drawing towards December. Penny had completely read every book in the Ravenclaw common room and had begun reading everything within the library. Since the time returning the origami bird to Malfoy she had not received any other form of threats from them. She would find out on this day however that they were just biding their time. As she turned a particularly sharp corridor Malfoy and his pair of minions were waiting for her. "Well if it isn't perfect Penelope Partridge!" his disdain dripped with each and every syllable. The trio stared directly towards her. Crabbe and Goyle doing their best to look intimidating. "Hows your Father doing? had any difficult to clean toilets recently?" Crabbe and Goyle started laughing. Penny rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. Seeing that they didn't get the reaction they were expecting made Malfoy seethed with rage. "See, this is what happens when a blood traitor breeds with a Muggle. Their filthy offspring doesn't know how to behave in-front of their betters". Malfoy reached for his wand but before he could do anything, Penny fired off three blindingly fast none verbal curses of Petrificus Totalus also known as the full body bind curse. The trio collapsed to the floor, Penny walking closer towards them with each step the fear in Malfoy's eyes grew wider and wider. Penny decided that now would be the perfect chance to experiment with a few things. With a wave of her wand she moved the trio into an empty classroom. Whilst there she requested a book from her bag that she had recently gotten from the library. The book was on the intricacies of Occlumency and Legilimency. She spent the next couple of hours diving into each of the threes minds and learning all their secrets. She saw memories of their families proudly boasting of their times as death eaters and working with Voldemort. What she found most amusing was the many plans that the three were privy to one such includes the possible use of a seemingly innocent but aged black diary. She was astounded by the cruelty in the majority of the memories. for the three, there were many a memory of their upbringing. Being so in-trenched in pure-blood ideology from a young age complete with punishments should they not behave as expected,has almost brainwashed the three into falling inline within this belief. The thing Malfoy seems to think Penny is hiding would appear to be a method of cheating which he wanted to black-mail her with. He felt her constant lack of motivation during class was at odds with her always near perfect test scores. There are some subjects Penny has no interest in so she skates by with the bare minimum effort in those but given her ability to memorize anything she reads she still gets high scores, it seems her performance has drawn unwarranted attention.Feeling as though she has had enough practice of Leglimency she altered their memories so that they will forget she used them as guinea pig's. She removed the full body bind curse and altered their memories as skillfully as she could so as not to cause any issues. The three were later found by Professor Snape who despite her best efforts he seemingly recognized that their memories had been tampered with. Returning to the common room a worried Agnes and Drew asked where Penny has been. Penny briefly explains the happenings with Malfoy and his attempt to black mail her thinking she was cheating in her academic performance in some way. Agnes and Drew flew into a rage and when it became know by the others of Ravenclaw they soon followed suit. The hatred of Malfoy was also transferred to the Slyverin's in general as Ravenclaw's upcoming Quidditch match is against Slyverin.